You need to become familiar with street signs, hand gestures and traffic times of your area beforehand.

You should check mirrors regularly, more than what you would if you were driving by yourself. Generally, you should do so every 5 seconds and you need to check mirrors every time that you use the breaks.

Use the break and the gas pedal with your right foot. You left foot should just sit there.

Make sure you have the car's registration, be sure that all headlights and indicators work and there are no cracks in the windshield.

Make sure the car is neat and clean inside as well since a good impression like this will even have an impact.

So that you don't have to putz around before you take the test, your seat, mirrors, and steering wheelshould already be adjusted.

Parallel parkthe best that you can. Turn on indicators or you may fail. Bumping the curb a little bit will probably cause you to lose some points but that alone will not fail you.

Don't tailgate. Check your rear review mirrors whenever you touch the brake at all to make sure that a car behind you does not hit you. If someone is tailgating you during the test, pull to the side of the road to let them pass to avoid danger.

In case you're wondering, it does not matter which DMV you go to- they are basically all the same. A prepared driver won't have bigger problems at one DMV vs another. Some DMV's might be known to have crabbier workers than others, but if you look at the big picture there isn't much of a difference.